Tomorrow Will Be Kinder
by walkerbitergeek
Summary: TRIGGER WARNING. / Beth and Daryl make their escape after the attack at the prison, and ponder on the brightness of the days to come. / Interpret their relationship as you wish. One shot.


**Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead, or the song Tomorrow Will Be Kinder.**

**Trigger warning for depression and other things.**

_Black clouds are behind me, I now can see ahead_  
_Often I wonder why I try hoping for an end_  
_Sorrow weighs my shoulders down_  
_And trouble haunts my mind_  
_But I know the present will not last_  
_And tomorrow will be kinder_

_Tomorrow will be kinder_  
_It's true, I've seen it before_  
_A brighter day is coming my way_  
_Yes, tomorrow will be kinder _

_Today I've cried a many tear_  
_And pain is in my heart_  
_Around me lies a somber scene_  
_I don't know where to start_  
_But I feel warmth on my skin_  
_The stars have all aligned_  
_The wind has blown, but now I know_  
_That tomorrow will be kinder_

_Tomorrow will be kinder_  
_I know, I've seen it before_  
_A brighter day is coming my way_  
_Yes, tomorrow will be kinder_

_A brighter day is coming my way_  
_Yes, tomorrow will be kinder_

The motorcycle flew down the road, a stone faced Daryl in front, his mind one one track. Moving. He had to keep moving, going running. He didn't care where, but he needed to cover all the ground he could by nightfall. He needed to. It would hardly assist him in the fact that he had a 17 year old girl clinging to him tighter than a leech, crying over her dead father.

Beth clenched onto Daryl tightly, her face contorting into sobs. She tried to pace her breathing, but she knew she was in deep when she felt Daryl's muscles tense and relax repetativley, like she did when she was trying not to cry.

_I don't cry anymore, Daryl._

Bullshit. He had called it the moment the words came from her mouth, but he had looked at her, not as the pretty teenager who was always caring for the baby, or the stony faced warrior who clutched a gun, but as a survivor and a victim. As a person.

It wasn't that she didn't cry anymore, it was that she didn't want to cry. He thought back to at the farm, where he vaguely remembered something about Beth attempting suicide, but admist being hurt and trying to find Sophia, he hadn't payed attention to the younger farmer's daughter.

It was this memory that caused him to notice the sunset, and stop the bike. He flicked down the kickstand and wobbled off, drunken from his rage at the prison. Beth, however, was on high alert. She gazed around the forrest, her eyes drinking in the surroundings.

"We need to make camp." Daryl explained, looking towards a tree that has an abundance of thick branches. He stuck a boot clad foot on the tree and pulled himself up, sitting on an unusually flat branch. He gazed down at Beth, who was numbly staring back at the road.

"Rope." She murmured. "We'd need to be tied into the tree, or else we'd fall."

"Not nessicarily." Daryl said still a few yards above her. "Unless you toss and turn much," he shrugged and looked back towards the bike, in an attempt to find what she found so riveting.

"You do. I do." Before Daryl could question her knowledge of his sleeping habits, she was speaking. "Judith wakes up a lot. Carol needs the sleep more than I do, and" her face contorted into a grimace. "I don't think Rick gives a rat's ass."

Though he agreed, Daryl cleared his throat and asked. "What did you do for Little Ass Kicker -er - Judith?" It looked like Beth had plumetted back into an unresponsive state, and she kicked a pebble with her shoe.

Walking towards the bike, she opened the sidebag arms began pulling out supplies. Rather than come to the aid of the bike, he watched the teenager intently from the perch in the tree, where she took out the small knife he had in there and shrugged off her sweater. She was wearing a shirt underneath, but the thin fabric of that made her appear much more vulnerable. She took the knife and began tearing the over sized fabric into six thick long strips.

"Beth!" Daryl said, dropping out of the tree. "The hell you doing?" She looked up at him, unblinking

"Making rope." She replied roughly, tying together the ends of the fabric and walking silently over to the tree. Interested, Daryl looked on. Beth scaled the tree with acrobatic poise, and slung the peice of fabric around the tree. Demonstrating, she lied down and secured the first rope around her calves, before quickly doing the same to her waist and her chest. She suddenly began thrashing about, and Daryl began rushing to her aid, but she spoke.

"I'm showing you what they do." She explained. She did so in a softer tone than he would have, and, of course, without tacking an insult on the end. And slipped her thin arms around the tree and untied herself, before flipping onto her stomach and dropping down.

She landed fine, but she stumbled over a root and went sprawling towards the ground. She heard a loud pop, and white hot pain shot up her leg and she left out a small scream. She fell to the ground with a think and cursed loudly.

Daryl raised an eyebrow, assuming she was over reacting and then winced when he saw the able her ankle was at. Her foot was bent back so it was nearly touching the back of her leg, and the ankle was already doubling in size and turning a sickly pre-bruise yellow.

"Shit," Daryl said, walking over to Beth. "Shit shit shit shit." He jumped up, and being much taller, could just snag the price of fabric. He tore it off the branch and grabbed the thickest branch he could. Darkness was falling, and they had no shelter and a severe lack of defenses. Daryl cursed their previous luck - he'd gotten to used to the safety of the prison - he could protect himself and Beth when he was awake, but the slumber in the cells had numbed his nighttime senses and tolerance. He glanced one more towards the bike, and back at Beth. He could leave, run, be safe. He could survive the night, find the others. He knew that for a fact. But while Beth was decent with a gun, and was clever, she'd be dead by midnight if he left her alone.

_You could leave her behind. Say she's gotten bit. Her daddy's dead, and you don't even know if her sister is alive._ The voice inside his head taunted him as he created a makeshift splint for Beth.

But he wouldn't. He couldn't. Dixons were mean, ruthless and selfish. They held their own though, and Dixons would survive.

He looked at the girl, the one right in front of him, bravely baring a knife, ready for the walkers, but scared, and hurt. Her age decreased years, and she was Sophia, groaning as she walked out of the barn, and the days he had spent agonizing and searching crumbled in tune with his mind and his heart. Dixons would have laughed silently at the fallen mother's greif, at the pain on everyone's eyes, at the sobbing family staring at their relatives twice dead.

He wasn't entirely certain he was a Dixon any more.

"You can leave me here," Beth said quietly, as if she could read Daryl's mind. "You'd be better off without me. Have a better chance of survival."

"Survival ain't worth shit anymore." He said, tying the second price if fabric around her leg. "It's living that you need more. What keeps you sane."

Beth frowned almost sinisterly, laughing as she started at the makeshift gauze around her ankle. "If you aren't sane, then you sure as hell want the others to survive. You can't live without surviving."

Daryl tried to keep him mind off how broken her words seemed. He just kept trying to speak. "I'm determined to have both of us do both."

Beth shut down again, not responding. Daryl sighed and said, "Start making a fire." Beth obliged, and soon they were eating the canned something or another and sipping slightly from the water bottle in the bottom of the side bag on the bike. They ate in silence, the only noises were birds chirping obliviously and their own mouths chewing.

"What are we doing tomorrow? Will we keep moving?" Beth spoke much to Daryl's surprise. He shook his head and decided to be honest with her.

"We'll keep moving, but I don't know where. We never discussed where we'd meet if something happened." He said. "You were on the council. You'd know."

Beth remained quiet again, and Daryl kicked himself mentally. He should just keep quiet, all he was doing was hurting Beth.

"I'm sorry about Merle." Beth blurted. She looked at Daryl, and this time, locked eyes with him. Daryl didn't speak and just continued eating in fear he wikiups upset Beth further. He already had to look after a barely-capable teenager with a broken God-knows-what, and the last thing he needed was one so deep in grief she could hardly speak. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry about Hershel, but he stayed silent. He was treading a dangerous road.

"It's not gonna get better, though." Beth continued. "After I lost Mom, and Jimmy, and everyone else at the farm, it doesn't get better. It's only gotten worse with Daddy gone. You don't go numb, you don't forget, the pain kills you slowy. I used to sing to Judith, this song. Tomorrow Will Be Kinder. But it's a lie. Tomorrow ain't shit." She said, her voice empty and passionless. Tears didn't even twinge her eyes.

_I don't cry anymore, Daryl._

* * *

The next morning, Daryl awoke with his knife not in his hand. He was up like a shot when he didn't feel it, and he drew his bow. He looked at the branch above him. No Beth. His heart caught in his throat.

_The pain kills you slowly._

_Tomorrow ain't shit._

"Beth!" Daryl screamed into the morning light, not caring what he brought into the area. He needed to find her. He needed to. He left the camp site with nothing in hand, leaving everything behind, just running, pumping his legs and forcing air from his lungs.

"Beth! Beth!"

Twigs snapped at his ankles, and he finally saw what he recognized as Beth's shirt color. A grin found its way onto his face, and he lunged at the splotch of color. But it was just a peice of her shirt caught on the branch. He looked up and drew in a breath. No. No.

No.

There was Beth, her feet dangling from the branch, the fabric from her sweater looped together in a noose, where her neck was hung in between the loop of fabric. A low guttural sound, hardly human, emitted from Daryl as he saw her lifeless body, not yet animated, hanging from the tree. He choked on a sob, but his breath hitched when he saw her stomach. Bare from where her shirt snagged, 4 words were painted on her abdomen in the blood still dripping from her wrists.

_Tomorrow Will Be Kinder._

Daryl crumpled to the ground, pain stabbing him every time he dared shed a tear. There, he thought, was where he decided he couldn't go on caring so damn much, he couldn't. He looked at Beth, the words he spoke feeling foreign on his lips.

"I won't cry anymore, Beth."

And he shot her in the head.

A second later, Daryl Dixon broke his promise.

* * *

It was five months later when he was reunited, and 3 days into that marked the question from Maggie. She was clutching Judith, barely concealing her own baby bump, when she turned to Daryl and said "What happened to Beth?"

Daryl looked at her for a long while, not answering her. Maggie didn't speak, and neither did Daryl, but Judith, saying her first word.

"Beth!"

Daryl knew then that no one could no the truth. Like Beth had always said, everyone had jobs to do. And Daryl's was to have Beth remembered in the light she would want.

"She didn't make it out." He said quietly. Maggie sobbed, and no one interrupted her as she cried for what seemed like an endless period of time. Tears were shed for the others, but no one was mourned for as much as Beth Greene.

Once the tears had subsided, Maggie turned to Daryl, not speaking, but her face pleaded for closure.

"She - uh - did tell me one thing she wanted you to know." Daryl lied, or, as he thought of it, was not a lie, but merely putting actions into words.

"What?"

_I don't cry anymore, Daryl. Tomorrow ain't worth shit. The pain kills you slowly._

"That the pain will subside. That you can be happy again. That tomorrow will be kinder."


End file.
